The mung bean (the seed of Vigna radiata) is a seed with a high physiological function, which is considered as one of the traditional Chinese medicine herbs for soothing inflammations in China, and widely eaten in China and Southeast Asia.
The mung bean is generally eaten in the form of a sweet soup of mung beans boiled and sweetened in Asian countries including China, and generally eaten in the form of mung bean sprouts in Japan. The starch isolated from mung beans is used as an ingredient for mung bean thread noodles.
The mung bean protein is not considered as a major food allergen, and thus is a very useful food product as a protein source. The mung bean protein is discharged in large quantities as a by-product of the mung bean starch, and there are some reported cases of mung bean protein in papers and the like. However, the mung bean protein is not widely used in food applications. The reason for this is believed to be that the mung bean protein has been positioned as a by-product of the mung bean starch heretofore, and has been mainly used for livestock feed; it has not been fully studied for food applications.
Patent Literature 1 discloses that the study was made on a liquid diet using the mung bean milk. In the study, a method including soaking beans as a raw material, and thereafter extracting the mung bean milk was used as in common manufacturing methods, and furthermore, heat sterilization was conducted, as described therein. Patent Literature 2 describes the preparation and pulverization of the mung bean protein from mung beans. Non Patent Literatures 1 and 2 describe the preparation methods and analysis results for the mung bean protein.